Oxford city centre venue latest to join Conference Centres of Excellence

Conference@SaïdOxford, part of the Saïd Business School, University of Oxford, in the heart of Oxford city centre is the latest venue to join Conference Centres of Excellence, the nationwide group of quality assured meeting, conference and events venues.

The impressive West Wing opened in 2012 and offers a wide variety of conference, meeting and exhibition facilities, finished and furnished to the highest of standards and with stunning architecture.

Highlights include three oak-panelled Harvard-style lecture theatres each seating up to 76 delegates, three large flexible classrooms, and 18 boardroom style seminar rooms.

The East Wing offers a high quality venue, with the pretty courtyard and beautiful garden ensuring an air of calm and tranquillity to a wide variety of facilities. The grounds are suited to seasonal networking events such as BBQs and wine tasting, and can incorporate activities such as team building exercises. Marquees can be erected in the courtyard area, and the 400 seat outdoor amphitheatre offers a truly stunning and unique option for an event.

“Customers will be extremely impressed with the variety of facilities, including the lecture theatres and superb technology in all event spaces. The convenient city centre location will also benefit all delegates and the unique outdoor space is a hidden gem within the urban environment.” commented Amanda Stacey, Marketing Manager at Conference Centres of Excellence.

Having met the requisite quality criteria for facilities and customer care, joining Conference Centres of Excellence enables Conference@SaïdOxford to benefit from the group’s marketing activities, providing customers with a single route to booking nationwide venues, with consistent quality standards.

“We are delighted and honoured to be joining Conference Centres of Excellence and fully support their values of providing the highest professional standards in the meetings and event industry, ensuring our customers experience an excellent quality of service and facilities.” Said Martin Garside, Space, Allocation and Events Manager.

“Following a £28 million investment into our conference and meeting facilities we offer world-class venues with all-year round availability and look forward to working in partnership with new event organiser’s in arranging events of the highest standard”.

Competition heats up as finalists announced in annual Chefs’ Challenge

A shortlist of finalists has been announced by Conference Centres of Excellence for the 16th annual Chefs’ Challenge competition, to be held on October 25th in Milton Keynes.

The long established competition invites chefs who work in any of the nationwide Conference Centres of Excellence venues to take part in a cook-off competition where their skills are put to the test with specific criteria for their menu, providing an opportunity to test culinary talents in a head-to-head competition with exceptional standards.

This year’s cook-off, supported by partners and sponsors British Premium Meats, Tchibo Coffee International, Wilson Vale and Kent Frozen Foods, is to be held at Milton Keynes College, followed by a celebratory awards dinner held during the evening at Cranfield Management Development Centre.

The competition also includes a Food Service Skills award, to encourage food service staff to take part and support their chef colleague, competing for their own best service skills award and the Chairman’s award for best team.

For Conference Centres of Excellence this event is an additional component to their strategy of continuous quality assurance and is a great opportunity to recognise the achievements of their members’ chefs and a celebration of exceptional food.

This year once again saw an exceptional standard of entries, and the 10 finalists, shortlisted from their detailed menu presentation are:

• Ashley Harrison, College Court

• Iain Ramsay, The Beardmore Hotel and Conference Centre

• Jennifer Chaudhuri-Goff, Maple House

• Matt Wiltshire, Ashorne Hill

• Ashley Holt, Wellcome Trust – supported by Cydney Nicholson-Ray for Food Service Skills

• Claire Willett, Wyboston Lakes – supported by Josh Spence for Food Service Skills

• Jason Turton, College Court – supported by Richard Augustus for Food Service Skills

• Keith Tayler, Scarman Warwick Conferences – supported by Kimberley Tayler for Food Service Skills

• Kieron Toner, Wyboston Lakes – supported by Linda Zilberta for Food Service Skills

• Robert Gossage, Burleigh Court – supported by James Geary for Food Service Skills

Amanda Stacey, Marketing Manager at Conference Centres of Excellence said “Quality of food and exceptional service standards are so important for an excellent venue experience, and our venues consistently raise the bar higher and higher. Our annual competition is the perfect opportunity for chefs and their service teams to showcase their incredible talents and abilities, and we wish all the finalists the very best of luck.”

The 2014 Training Market

Training and Teambuilding on the increase during 2014, as business confidence returns across a number of sectors.

2014 to date has shown a significant and notable increase in the number of residential training bookings, reinforcing the belief that taking staff to a dedicated, specialist training environment will provide the best results for learning and development. A demand for delegates to pay for their own accommodation during training courses has also been seen, with the training department responsible for a day delegate rate and confirmation of the meeting space. Most venues now offer this as a seamless service, showing increased flexibility to meet customer need.

Conference Centres of Excellence has been working with training venues for over 21 years, and as training events form the largest volume of bookings managed (48% of bookings are training or teambuilding events), the nationwide group is well placed to monitor trends and ensure that they understand clients’ requirements. 

Over the last 12 months Conference Centres of Excellence and the Learning and Performance Institute (LPI) formed a partnership representing an on-going commitment to raise quality standards within venues dedicated to learning and development, which supports marketing to the Training Sector.

Following an independent business mapping process carried out on behalf of the LPI, the quality criteria for Conference Centres of Excellence member venues has been endorsed in alignment with the Learning Facilities Accreditation Programme, providing evidence of on-going commitment to best practice and providing highest quality, cost effective facilities and service for the Learning and Development community. The group’s 30 member venues are therefore Endorsed in alignment with the Learning Facilities Accreditation Programme as provided by LPI.

Conference Centres of Excellence is exhibiting this week at the LPI annual conference Learning Live, for all corporate and commercial trainers, training managers, L&D managers and HR managers featuring world-class speakers and thought-leaders from the L&D world, together with inspirational case studies, practical workshops and networking opportunities galore.

CEO takeover at Farncombe- Boss swaps top job with intern for the day!

One minute 21-year-old  Lucy Weaver was a junior intern at Farncombe Estate near Broadway, the next she was promoted to CEO, overseeing almost 200 employees at Farncombe Conference Centre and Dormy House Hotel.

Lucy’s meteoric career rise was short-lived however.  Andrew Grahame, 53-year-old Farncombe CEO, had agreed to swap jobs for just 24 hours, giving himself – and Lucy – a fresh perspective on the business, from top to bottom.

“It was good to spend some time with the team: I learnt a lot and I really enjoyed it,” said Andrew after an exhausting day which included bouncing around on a space hopper. Lucy meanwhile concluded that she’d had a great experience, “but I think it would be too stressful to be CEO!”

Lucy Weaver, a degree student in Business, Advertising and PR at Worcester University, has been on a sandwich placement at Farncombe since May 2013.  As marketing assistant, she usually spends her time updating company websites, organising photo shoots and sending marketing emails.  For one day only, she had her very own Personal Assistant – 26-year-old Rebecca Longbottom – and toured the Estate to meet all the teams and create her personal  five-year-plan for the business.

“I went into a Dormy revenue meeting and heard all about their monthly targets and how they balance average room rate with occupancy,” says Lucy.  “I also saw the Barnyard, where the Farncombe Estates team make furniture and fittings from scratch.  It’s amazing to see the work that goes on behind the scenes.”

Lucy’s plans for Farncombe include making more of the 400-acre estate with new activities for leisure visitors; introducing spa day incentives for staff and painting the conference centre reception bright pink.  All her ideas will be given careful consideration.

For Andrew Grahame, who joined Farncombe as CEO in September 2012, his day in Lucy’s shoes gave him an invaluable insight into the workings of the sales and marketing office.  He began his day organising a photo shoot with space hoppers – and falling off a few times – before researching sponsorship for the 2015 Farncombe Courses brochure and sending out the first 100 emails to a database of 4,000 corporate contacts.

“The focus in the office impressed me,” said Andrew.  “There was a lot of problem solving going on – dealing with people who change their requirements for instance.  You don’t appreciate the mechanics of it until you spend time with the team.  We had a laugh and a joke and I think I earned my keep!”

Andrew, whose career has taken him through the ranks of hotel management, including Broadway’s Lygon Arms and Goodwood Estates, has never worked in a noisy open plan office before.  “I found it difficult to concentrate,” he admitted.  “I could never work in a busy office like that!  It’s been fun, but I’m glad to be back at my own desk.”